


Breathless

by OreoLuvr13



Series: The Aches and Pains of Sonny Carisi [4]
Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Barisi - Freeform, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sequel, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-02 17:18:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16791304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OreoLuvr13/pseuds/OreoLuvr13
Summary: Complications arise after Carisi's bout of pneumonia in "A Slight Detour Home."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I just couldn't help myself....

Carisi pulls up to the witness’ house. “This is it?”

Rollins nods her head, “Yeah. Looks like it. 1311 South Palmer. Last known address of Casey Tyler.”

“Let’s see what Mr. Tyler has to say,” Carisi says. 

It’s been slow this week. There are no new pressing cases. During the lull, SVU has been looking over cold cases. Taking a second look at the cases. Seeing if time and a new set of eyes may see something the second time around, combing through old witness statements and case notes. While looking into the Casiglia case, Carisi came across a witness statement stating that she noticed a delivery van in the area every day for a week before the girl’s disappearance. The lead was never followed up on. Carisi tracked down the eyewitness who said that she never saw the van again after the teenager’s disappearance. With a little more digging, it turns out the delivery van was for Zio’s Pizza. At the time the van was used by a delivery boy named Casey Tyler. Casey Tyler was a new employee during the time and subsequently stopped showing up to work two days after Melissa Casiglia disappeared. 

Carisi steps out of the car. The bite of the cold, December air hits him as soon as breathes in the frigid air. He lets out a deep cough. Rollins look at him with concerned eyes. It’s been nearly two months since he was in the hospital with a serious bout of pneumonia that left them all shaken. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” Carisi says once his coughing stops. “I’m fine.”

“You better be. I’m not going through that again,” Rollins says as they start walking towards the old, run down house.

Carisi rolls his eyes as he walks alongside his partner. “Thanks for the concern.”

“I am concerned,” Rollins says as she pushes back a piece of hair behind her ear. ”Concerned about my well-being. If you get sick on my watch, Barba is going to have my ass.”

“No he won’t.” Carisi argues.

“Um yeah he will. You weren’t exactly lucid the last time you ended up in the hospital. Him and Liv were not good. You could cut the tension between the two with a knife,” Rollins sighs. Things are just now starting to get back to normal. The last thing they all need is Carisi to end up back in the hospital.

“Awww, were mom and dad fighting?” Carisi teases with a mischievous look in his eyes.

Rollins frowns. “First, that’s gross. Considering you’re sleeping with ‘dad’ and with our line of work. Making that joke is just so wrong.”

Carisi grimaces. “Yeah, I see what you mean when you put it that way.”

“And two,” Rollins continues. “I had to play mediator between the two of them and that’s not a great place to be in. I don’t ever want to do that again. That’s why you better not get sick again for the foreseeable future.”

“Duly noted,” Carisi replies.

“Good. Now let’s do this. You ready?” Rollins asks as they walk up the porch steps.

Carisi nods as he follows her. “Go ahead.”

Rollins knocks on the door. No answer. She knocks again. “Mr. Tyler! This is NYPD! We need to talk to you!”

“This is about Melissa Casiglia! We just want to ask you a few questions,” Carisi calls through the door.

The front door still doesn’t open, but someone is definitely home. Noises are coming from inside the house. They spare each other a second glance before they barged into the house. 

“Casey Tyler!” Rollins calls as she rushes the house. “We just need to speak to you!”

“You’re only making this harder on yourself!” Carisi adds, gun raised.

They follow the noises that are coming from the back of the house. The perp looks back at them quickly before he races towards the back door. They’re both on him. Carisi’s long legs giving him a substantial advantage over his partner as they make chase. It takes longer than it should, but soon Carisi has the guy tackled to the ground. His chest heaving with the exertion as he cuffs the man.

“I didn’t do anything!” Tyler protests from his belly down position.

“Then…why…did…you…run?” Carisi asks, clearly winded.

“You got him?” Rollins asks when she reaches the pair.

“Thanks…for…the assist,” Carisi retorts as he pulls Tyler up to a standing position. Rollins rolls her eyes as she grabs Tyler from her partner’s grasp. Carisi lets out a wheeze.

“You okay, Carisi?” Rollins asks concerned. His only response is more wheezing breaths.

“Carisi? What’s wrong? Talk to me!” Rollins yells as she pushes Tyler to the side to get a better view of her partner. She doesn’t like what she sees. Carisi is still struggling to catch his breath after his little chase. His erratic wheezing breaths fills the cold, near silent air. He looks like a fish out of water, his face contorting painfully as he tries taking in desperately needed breaths. With his hands free, he’s grabbing at his chest with his right hand in a frantic attempt to pull in much needed air.

“Can’t…can’t…breathe…tight,” Carisi gasps out in between wheezes.

“Okay, okay. You’re okay. Hold on,” Rollins says as she takes out her phone. “Hi, yeah this is Detective Rollins. Manhattan SVU. I need a bus at 1311 South Palmer.”

She turns to Carisi. “Just hold on, Carisi. I’m getting you help.” Her only response is the other detective’s wheezing breaths. His frantic grabbing at his chest more desperate. She starts speaking into the phone again. “Yeah, they need to get here now. My partner…my partner can’t breathe.”

XXXXX

Barba is in the middle of drafting a motion in limine. Well, maybe trying is a better way to describe. He hates writing motions in limine. Finding crafty ways to say that the defendant’s evidence is prejudicial to the case. In his eagerness to get a break, he answers his cell phone on the second ring. In his haste, he doesn’t even look to see who is calling.

“Barba,” Rollins says.

“Rollins?” Barba asks in confusion. She almost never calls him. They were never that close, but they seemed to have a turned a page in their relationship after Sonny landed in the hospital. Where before he would have found himself touching base with Liv about his partner’s health, he now finds himself texting Rollins. But Rollins very rarely calls him on her own initiative. What is this about? He’s prepping for the Jenkins trial. It’s been an unusually slow week at SVU, so they’ve been catching up on paperwork and other loose ends. He left SVU not even an hour ago. Rollins and Sonny weren’t there. They were chasing down some lead that came up on a cold case. “What can I do for you, Rollins?”

His heart speeds up when he hears her take a deep breath. “Barba...it’s Carisi.”

Dread floods through him. “What happened?”

“We were chasing down a lead in the Melissa Casiglia case. Missing girl from Hell’s Kitchen. You remember the case?”

He vaguely remembers it. It was a case from a few years back. Missing seventeen year old. Parents said she never came home from school. At a first glance they thought the disappearance was connected to a series of rapes in the area. But it never panned out. No DNA evidence. No eyewitness reporting seeing the serial rapist, Clyde Wozjenski, with the missing girl. With so little evidence to go on investigators deemed that no foul play was involved and that she was probably a runaway.

“Yeah, I remember it.” Barba half lies.

“We came across something so we went to go check it out,” Rollins continues.

“What happened?” Barba asks. “Did he get hurt?”

“No, not really.”

Barba feels like Rollins is talking in riddles. If Sonny didn’t get hurt, then why is she calling him?

“He ran. Carisi chased him down. But Carisi was having problems breathing. I called a bus when he couldn’t catch his breath.”

Barba sits in his chair horrified. The last time Sonny couldn’t breathe, he was in the hospital for ten days with a bad case of pneumonia. Five of which he was in the ICU with a respirator down his throat.

“He couldn’t breathe?” Barba asks brokenly.

Rollins must have been able to read his fear through the phone because the next time she talks her speech is much softer, more compassionate. One that she probably had used hundreds of times with victims and their families.  
“Barba, he’s going to be okay. The EMT’s got here not even five minutes after I made the call. His breathing got better as soon as they started giving him oxygen. He was still conscious when the EMT’s left with him. They’re taking him to the ER to get checked out.”

“He’s really okay?” Barba asks wishfully.

Rollins lets out a chuckle. “Okay enough to tell me not to call you.”

“Of course he did,” Barba curses. “Where are they taking him?”

“Presbyterian,” Rollins replies.

“I’ll meet you there,” Barba says before hanging up. He has to push those dire feelings away. Sonny can’t breathe. He’s going back to the hospital.

He shakes his head to push those thoughts away. Rollins said Sonny is going to be fine. He was aware enough to beg her not to call him. These are all good signs. Barba just has to concentrate on those.

Sonny is going to be okay. Sonny is going to be okay. He keeps saying the mantra to himself as he puts his coat on and heads out the door. Maybe if he says it enough times, he’ll actually start to believe it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barba meets Rollins at the hospital.

“Barba!” Rollins calls out when she sees Barba entering the ER. “Over here!”

Barba rushes over to the blonde. “Rollins! What the hell happened?”

Rollins puts her hands up in hopes of calming down the panicked prosecutor. “Easy, Barba. Like I told you on the phone. We went to go talk to a person of interest, Casey Tyler. He ran when he saw us. Carisi chased after him and when I got to them, Carisi couldn’t catch his breath.”

Barba runs a hand over his chin. It may be the second time he’s hearing this, but it’s still tough to hear. “Where is he now?”

Rollins motions to a set of double doors. “He’s back there now. The doctors are with him.”

“Did they say what they think it is? Do they think he had a relapse of the pneumonia?”

“They’re doing a chest x-ray now to see if his lungs are clear.” Rollins says. “They asked me if Carisi has asthma.”

“Asthma?” Barba repeats. 

“Yeah. It must have looked like an asthma attack. I said no. Carisi never mentioned anything to me about having asthma. And this is the first time I’ve ever seen something like that happen with him. Has he said anything to you?” Rollins asks.

He can see that Rollins is trying to stay calm, but he can tell that she’s still reeling from what she witnessed with Sonny. Standing by helplessly as your partner fights to breathe. Not being able to do anything as you wait for help to arrive. That affects you. He heard from Liv that she rode with Sonny in the ambulance. He knows that couldn’t have been easy. He was an eyewitness to a similar ambulance ride not too long ago himself. He would have been more concerned if she wasn’t shaken by it.

“Does he have asthma? Maybe as a kid?” Rollins tries again.

Barba shakes his head. He knows more than he cares to about Sonny’s and his sisters’ and even his nieces’ childhood ailments. His chronic ear infections as a kid. Gina’s tonsillectomy at the age of eight. Bella’s daughter’s relentless colic as a newborn. But Barba can’t recall Sonny ever saying anything about having asthma. He’s sure it would have come up at some point in this point of their relationship.

“Excuse me?” a doctor approaches them. “Detective Rollins?”

“Hi, Dr. Lee,” Rollins greets. She turns to Barba. “This is Rafael Barba. Detective Carisi’s partner.”

Dr. Lee nods his head. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Barba.”

“What’s wrong with him?” Barba asks not missing a beat. “Is he okay? Is the pneumonia back?”

The physician holds up his hand. “First off, your partner is going to be okay. We administered an albuterol nebulizer treatment and he is now resting comfortably.”

“A nebulizer?” Barba asks.

Dr. Lee frowns at the other man’s confusion. “When your partner was brought in, he was in respiratory distress brought on by a severe asthma attack. I asked Detective Rollins if Detective Carisi suffers from asthma and she didn’t believe so. Do you recall him ever mentioning it? Maybe he had it as a kid and grew out of it?”

Barba shakes his head. “He never mentioned it to me. Are you sure this isn’t some effect because of pneumonia? He just got over it two months ago.”

“Detective Rollins informed me about your partner’s recent bout with pneumonia. I had his records from St. Mark’s sent over. It looks like he recovered nicely from it despite it becoming anti-biotic resistant.”

Recovered nicely? Where the hell did this doctor come from. It took Sonny three weeks to get the okay to even return to work after he was released from the hospital. And even then, he was working half days his first week back. Last week was the first time since Sonny got sick that he pulled in a couple of hours of overtime.

“I had chest x-rays taken when Detective Carisi was first brought in and it looks like his lungs are all clear. No sign of pneumonia. What I believe this is, is a case of adult onset asthma.”

“Adult onset asthma?” Rollins asks.

Dr. Lee shakes his head. “It’s true that children are more likely to suffer from asthma. But asthma can appear at any time. Even in adulthood. It’s also a possible side effect of a serious illness that effects the lungs, such as the flu. Or pneumonia.”

It takes Rafael a few moments to wrap his head around this new development, but luckily Rollins is there to help clarify things.

“The pneumonia did this?” Rollins asks.

Dr. Lee shrugs his shoulders. “It could have. Or it could have been brought on because of something else.”

“So what do we do now?” Barba asks.

“First, thing you’re going to do is get him to a pulmonologist. They’ll run a lung function test and gauge how severe the asthma is. Determine if it was a onetime thing. See if it’s intermittent or more severe. Until you can get him to a pulmonologist, keep an eye on him. I’m going to keep him here for a few hours for observation. But I’ll release him later tonight. I’m going to send him home with a prescription for two inhalers. One is for prevention that he will take every day. The other will be for a rescue inhaler that he will use in case he suffers another asthma attack. That should hold you over until you can get in to see a pulmonologist. They’ll develop a more concrete plan based on the severity and occurrence of the asthma.”

Jesus. How did they get here? Just this morning their biggest problem was where they were going to get dinner tonight. Now they’re talking about inhalers, pulmonologists, and lung function tests. Can’t they catch a break?

“I know I gave you a lot of information in a short period of time, but do you have any questions?” Dr Lee asks.

Rollins and he look at the doctor, but neither say anything. Questions, yes. Too many too count, but Rafael doesn’t know where to start. Taking their silence as a sign that they’re good for now, Dr. Lee excuses himself with the pretense that he has other patients to attend to and that they can go see Sonny.

With the physician gone, Rollins lets out a loud sigh. “Jesus, Carisi.”

Rafael seconds that. “I’m going to wrap him in bubble wrap.”

Rollins smirks. “I think you may be better off putting him in a plastic bubble.”

Barba nods. “Maybe. But who are we fooling. He’ll still find a way to scare us shitless.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Rollins replies. “Listen are you okay here? I hate to leave, but my sitter called when I was waiting for you to get here. She has some family emergency and I need to get home to my kid.”

“We’re good. Go home,” Barba says. 

“Okay, keep me updated. Because you know he won’t,” Rollins says with a roll of her eyes.

“Will do,” Rafael promises the detective. As the detective makes her exit, he turns to a nurse to find out where exactly Sonny is.

Barba makes his way to the curtained area that the nurse directed him to. He takes a second before he pushes back the curtain as he fights the barrage of images that come to him from the last time Sonny was in the hospital. His scarily blue lips. The pale skin. The tube down his throat. The way Sonny was so still in that bed.

Barba lets out a deep breath. That was then. This is now. Sonny is going to be okay. Dr. Lee is going to release him in a couple of hours. He pushes back the curtain.

“Hey,” a tired Sonny greets from his bed.

Just one word and Rafael feels relief flow through his body. That and seeing with his own two eyes that Sonny is okay. The detective is sitting up. He’s sporting a nasal cannula but his eyes are clear. They’re lucid and not supporting that awful fever bright look like they did when he was fighting the pneumonia. Barba steps closer to the bed. “Hey, yourself. I hope you’re happy now. Pulling me away from writing up those motions in limine for the Rodrigues case.”

Sonny rolls his eyes. “You hate writing motions in limine.”

Barba picks up Sonny’s hand and squeezes the younger man’s fingers. Sonny squeezes back. They’re not slack and unresponsive like they were when Rafael was pleading with Sonny to fight. 

“I’m okay,” Sonny says his hand again. “I’m sorry I scared you…again.”

“You didn’t scare me,” Rafael says as he attempts to lighten the mood. “Rollins was the one who called me all frazzled. I think you owe her a night of baby-sitting to make up for it.”

But Sonny knows him too well. He isn’t fooled. “Rafi, I’m okay.”

Yeah, this time. But what happens if they can’t get the asthma under control? What if Sonny forgets his inhaler and has another attack? One that’s worse than this one. 

“You had an asthma attack,” Rafael says.

Sonny waves off his partner’s concern. “I did and I’m okay now. I already had Dr. Lee get me the names of some pulmonologists. You can even make the appointment for me. I know what I have to do. I’ll be okay.”

He wishes he can share Sonny’s belief that everything is going to be okay, but he can’t. Not yet. Not when the memories of a near lifeless Sonny lying in a hospital bed still haunt him when he closes his eyes late as night, as he lies awake listening to Sonny’s steady breathing.

“Rafi,” Sonny says bringing him back to the present. “It’s going to be okay.”

Rafael looks at Sonny. Sees how he genuinely believes what he is saying. Maybe Barba can share Sonny’s positivity, at least a fraction of it. 

“Fine, but you’re setting a damn alarm for that inhaler.”

“Okay, Raf.”

“And I’m going in with you when you see the doctor because you bring a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘need to know basis,’” Rafael says.

“Okay,” Sonny agrees with a roll of his eyes.

“Oh and Rollins knows about the rescue inhaler. She was there when Lee told me about it. She’s going to make sure that you never leave the precinct without it.”

Barba is pretty sure that he’s not even exaggerating when he says the last part. Rollins will no doubt be on his side with this. This little stint not only scared him, but it scared her too. Sonny will never be leaving the precinct without his inhaler under her watch.

Sonny nods because he knows better than to argue with Barba when he’s like this. “Whatever you say, Rafi.”

“Okay, good. Glad we’re in agreement.” Rafael says as he kisses Sonny quickly on the cheek. As he pulls away, Sonny scooches over on the narrow bed to make room. Rafael takes the cue and sits down on the bed, their hips touching. “Now hand over that list of doctors.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! So this is going to be a relatively shorter fic. It'll probably total maybe three or four chapters. But don't worry, I'm not done with this little arc and I have more ideas for sick and hurt Carisi fics.


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